


Into the Sun

by Toshi_Nama



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25152124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toshi_Nama/pseuds/Toshi_Nama
Summary: Not all wounds heal, and love still has to bow to death. This is for the lovely Hana and their Ameila Tabris. PLEASE see their comic which inspired this! It was so painfully beautiful, I had to write the next event.https://hanatsuki89.tumblr.com/post/622726703209447424/zevwarden-week-2020-day-2-death-former-warden
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Female Tabris
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	Into the Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ElenaHana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElenaHana/gifts).



“Papà, let me take them.”

His Milo’s voice didn’t penetrate this time beyond a faint buzzing. It was enough to make his right hand clench tighter around the two bits of gold, anchoring himself on them. Their matches burned where they had been for decades now, but no. He could not think of that. He wouldn’t touch the ring in his ear or look at the other on his finger. Instead he watched his heart as it fled on flames and wind, stinging eyes that bled.

“Papà, please. Mamà had…she…she..”

Zevran swallowed, but it did nothing to ease the knots wrapped around his throat. “Go,” he said hoarsely. Her eyes reproached him.  _ How could you treat him like this? He is our son.  _ “I...will come in soon.”

A hand tightened on his shoulder, then Milo rested his cheek against it. “As you say. Mamà wouldn’t want us to be alone.” His son’s voice was no less hoarse, but he could think past the grief for his own partner, their children. He had always known he would outlive her - that after all is what children do.

_ He,  _ however, had not. 

He’d  _ known _ that it wouldn’t happen, even as their hair turned white and lines fanned the years across their faces. They had promised each other ‘forever.’ He had lived in the moment, and now her place at his side was empty. He stood and watched her ashes, alone.

No, no, his Amelia would not want him to be alone. She’d said it several times, but he’d turned away from her words with a joke or a kiss. She’d said it for the first time so long ago, with Urthemiel’s shadow hanging over Denerim. She’d said it again and again, as they ‘conversed’ with the Crows. She’d said it when Milo had thrust himself into their lives and hearts...and when he’d wed, though the tears then were from joy.

She had said it two nights ago, when he couldn’t hide from the truth.  _ ‘Zevran, my love. You’ll never be alone. Remember that. Promise me.’ _

He had promised her then because she had asked for it. “Forgive me,” he begged the ashes flying above him, her spirit with them. “It was the only time I lied to you.”

_ ‘We’re too old for that, Zevran!’  _ Her laughter rang in his mind as he’d pulled her, willing, behind the rose bushes.  _ ‘Haven’t you noticed my hair’s even whiter than yours?’  _ What did that matter, when her soul was so bright and her lips warm and eager against his?

The memories kept coming. The day she’d knelt before him, tears like stars in her eyes.  _ ‘Will you marry me?’  _ How could he have said anything but yes? How could he have ever said anything but ‘yes’ to the woman who’d had his heart long before he would admit it? Then there was her smile, fiercely tender, when Milo had fallen asleep pressed against him.  _ ‘Are you sleeping here tonight, then, instead of our bed?’ _

His bright hawk, his lover, his wife; she had understood him. He looked up again, the white cloud fading against the setting sun.

_ ‘It’s not your time yet, my love,’  _ she’d whispered against the walls he’d built around his grief.  _ ‘But you’ll never be alone. I promise. Don’t forget.’ _

A child’s arms wrapped around his leg even as he heard the shout from inside their home. “Lucia? Lucia!”

She sniffled against his pants, and he reached down to scoop her up and hold her close. She picked at the hand he still had closed, and unlike with his son, he allowed his fingers to open. He couldn’t look, though.

“How did you get them, Nonno?” Her voice was shy - the one who took after his heart the most,  _ shy?  _ “Will you tell me?”

He wiped his tears into her hair, and she let him. “Yes, of course, little falcon. Though  _ I  _ did not get the one. Your Nonna - she is the one who found the larger.” He looked past his granddaughter again, closing his hand more gently around the two rings. The last of the smoke had vanished from sight, leaving only the sun turning as gold as his ring. It would set now, but return tomorrow. The ache, he knew, would last much, much longer.

He kissed the girl’s hair and set her down. “Can you bring them to your Papà, very carefully?”

She nodded and he watched her walk back into the quiet house, where Milo was waiting at the door.

“Perhaps, Amora, you will keep me honest this one last time,” he murmured. She laughed back at him, her eyes warm.  _ ‘Of course, my love.’  _ He bowed to the sun, the last adventure his love had started first, his heart still safe in her care.

At least he had not left her to face this pain. That, too, was a balm that did not cover the emptiness, but in time, it might. He had promised her nothing but joy. That, too, he had kept.


End file.
